


Living with an Elementalist

by WhoknewZeus



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Friendship, M/M, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Romance, add more tags in the future, sort of got the idea to write a theme similar to a manga called Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, this story just applies to a weird mixture of all of those
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-04-05 12:42:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14044488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoknewZeus/pseuds/WhoknewZeus
Summary: In a world where aliens from different dimensions, mythical creatures, and supernatural individuals intersect with humanity, the world could be seen as something hectic, chaotic, and out of place. However, it's not... people live gracefully and peacefully with sirens, vampires, and other things that wouldn't be considered humanly possible. In fact, they cohabit all together quite well.Park Chanyeol should know this as he lives with a powerful elementalist, an individual that could freely manipulate the natural elements present in materialistic world, for the past few years. Life may not exactly be normal all the time, but the days lined-up ahead of Chanyeol can be packed with spontaneous adventure. Frankly, he wouldn't have it any other way.***ORthe au where Chanyeol is a human and Kyungsoo is a metahuman, and their friendship and dynamic gets explored, along with the environment around them, in a series of mini-adventures.





	1. Prologue: Welcome to the New World!

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this and trying to get it out, but I can never agree on my writing style and how the development is going. So, I decided to turn this into another superpower/normal au where they just go on adventures or face their normal lives in this specific environment I set up. Please note that I made this for fun, so it's not serious more than half the time. Just enjoy as you can.

Name: Park Chanyeol  
Age: 26  
Birthday: November 27, 1991  
Species/Gender: Human/Male  
Federal Offenses: Zero  
Threat Level: Harmless  
Special Abilities: None  
Allergies: None  
Likes: Takoyaki—especially the ones made by his best friend Kyungsoo; sweets; cute things or things decorated in a cute manner; domestic animals; and exercising.  
Dislikes: Anyone that degrades ‘powerless’ (non-metahuman) people; too many vegetables in a dish; crazy spicy food; laziness.

Chanyeol looked over at his papers for his new identification card and nodded at it as he figured that this was what he would like to have on his ID for the next five years until he has to renew it again. He walked over to a greenish-yellow slug creature that casually and amazingly stamped and approved his paperwork without dripping any noxious slime over any part of his papers. “Thank you,” he said immediately and bowed at the slug as it bowed back.

The slug creature spoke perfectly before Chanyeol got up from his chair, “Sir, you know that the likes and dislikes were optional to complete, you know?”

“Of course, I do!” retorted Chanyeol cheerfully.

The slug made a nodding motion before directing with one of its tentacle eyes to the left, stating, “Okay then. Please go to window A7 to complete your registration.”

Chanyeol chuckled to himself as he made his way to the next window, pass the slug's cubicle, catching sight of the strange monsters and humans in a sloppy long line at the front entrance, thanking his God that he got through the traffic to be early to his appointment. A blind gorgon bumped into him, in which he apologized for not paying attention on his direction. "I'm so sorry!"

"It'ssss okaaay! Jussst be careful next time, young man," the gorgon sweetly spoke, slithering forward as her cane was rubbing and tapping across the brown tiles. 

Yeah. This definitively was what classified as 'normal' nowadays.

 

* * *

 

Once Chanyeol got home to his nifty apartment, he sighed in relief and began taking his shoes off by the front door. He turned on his TV and began listening to the news to see what was going on currently in his city.

“An activist group of sirens are protesting against a record label company that denied them equal pay simply because their voices are too hypnotic for the audience,” one newscaster started, “more coming up after the traffic report.”

Chanyeol supposed living in a world that was universally diverse was common on Earth. Aliens, half-breeds, mythical creatures, and others that fall under the umbrella term of “non-human” was present in the world since the beginning of time. For over hundreds of thousands of years, humanity has transformed into something that goes past the human race. Human language as well as deciphered alien language has been taught to the future generations in order to build the bridge between differing races. Although, Chanyeol has been having trouble trying to maintain more than five languages.

The extremely complex world has somehow maintained a balance to the chaotic entropy of intergalactic species living on Earth. Of course, racism was still present in various ways, directly and indirectly. Some species cannot live with humans while some other species see humans as a necessary part of life such as certain subspecies of succubus that need the life force from humans to live. Some people protest against aliens migrating to Earth and telling them to go back to their homeland.

Over an entity speaking something other than the normal human language, some people feel justified in their actions of killing innocent alien lives.

An English-speaking orange caterpillar was made president of the U.S. and began making terrible decisions for America. But that was too political to talk about. So, Chanyeol shrugged at it, being from a different country anyways, while heating up a ready-made dinner in the microwave to munch on until his roommate came home from their own registration appointment.

“Ugh,” a sound came from the other end of the front door before it opened.

“Ah, Kyungsoo-ssi! Welcome home!” Chanyeol greeted the shorter man at the hallway to the entrance once the door opened.

“Move. I’m tired,” Kyungsoo emptily threatened, but only because he lost a lot of his energy at his appointment since his was a different process than Chanyeol’s.

Chanyeol crept behind Kyungsoo and pushed him firmly to the couch to let the man rest up. An audible ding went out off in the kitchen, reminding the taller man that his food was ready. Leaving his short friend for a split moment to check on the status of his sad dinner, which was perfect to consume because Chanyeol had the ‘food is food’ mindset. The aroma of cheaply processed food aired out of the microwave and into the living room.

By the time Chanyeol returned to the couch to relax with Kyungsoo to watch the news together, he eagerly pegged at the shorter man about his registration process. “So, how did it go?” Chanyeol asked, stabbing his fork deep into the imitation meat.

“As usual,” Kyungsoo blandly replied, slumping into the couch, which Chanyeol knew that this meant that the shorter man was relaxed and calm. “Did you make sure to the pay your half the rent this month? I’m not covering you again.”

“Ah, come on! It was one time! I got my half ready, anyways,” Chanyeol exaggerated his reaction, flopping around in his position, waving arms as a baby would when in a tantrum. In most cases, Chanyeol would like to blindly believe that he's more mature than this.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kyungsoo casually brushed off his shoulder, “I hate it when it’s your turn to prepare dinner.”

As if shocked to hear this, Chanyeol had his hand over his chest with his jaw left wide open, “And why is that?”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes before giving the taller roommate his precious attention and breath, “Because you can’t cook for shit. We can’t keep eating ready-made meals for four nights a week.”

“Uh, last time I checked, yes, we can eat these type of meals long enough without dying or getting serious health problems,” Chanyeol sassed because a grumpy Kyungsoo wasn’t going to ruin his day, "and, second of all, you can choke." Still, curiosity was still a human flaw as he wondered what Kyungsoo’s ID had. Maybe it would have the same information as the last five years.

Without asking for it directly, Chanyeol was surprised when Kyungsoo stuck his hands into his pockets, fishing out an ID card for the taller man to examine. “Knock yourself out,” said Kyungsoo as he began to chow down on Chanyeol’s microwaved food.

Name: Do Kyungsoo  
Age: 26  
Birthday: January 12, 1992  
Species/Gender: Human/Male  
Federal Offenses: Five  
Threat Level: Planetary  
Special Abilities: Elementalist  
Allergies: None  
Dislikes: Anything that breathes or capable of thinking; work; loudness; stupid and careless actions by stupid and careless people; anyone that wastes food; paying the bills; responsibilities.

“Oh. My. God,” Chanyeol was in disbelief after reading the ID card.

“What? Don’t tell me the picture they took of me was too ugly?” Kyungsoo began looking over the ID to see what was wrong.

“I’m no longer on the dislike list!” Chanyeol exclaimed to the whole apartment complex, jumping up and down on the couch, spilling the ready-made dinner over to Kyungsoo’s side.

Luckily, Kyungsoo was an elementalist and had a choice of what element he could control at his will. Wind was a smart choice as he used a wind wall to block the incoming contents of their shared dinner back onto the floor. Then again, it backfired when the spilled liquids and meat didn’t look quite right on the oak wood flooring. So, Kyungsoo had to use his association with the water element to manipulate the liquid to float in the air into a shape of a sphere. “You can handle the rest since I took care of the bigger mess,” Kyungsoo sneered as he threw the ball precisely into the hole in the sink.

Chanyeol clenched his fist and frowned in disappointment in himself. He should’ve been more careful with his excitement. He knew that Kyungsoo wasn’t forgiving of people that wasted food, and Chanyeol went and exactly did what his shorter friend didn’t appreciate.

But there was a secret to Kyungsoo that only Chanyeol knows of... it was that Chanyeol was the only person that could ever get past through Kyungsoo’s heartless and piercing demeanor.

In a way, Chanyeol expected that Kyungsoo was pretty much the same as a cactus. Despite how much pricks a cactus grows, it still has a very soft interior. 

“Hey,” Kyungsoo suddenly called to Chanyeol. No longer slumping in the couch, Kyungsoo coughed a weird lump in his throat away. He started again, “Sorry… I didn’t mean to sound too rude about the mess.”

Chanyeol smiled. “Psft, of course, I’m sorry too! I didn’t mean to make that mess in the first place,” he exclaimed happily. “How about some noodles of your choice? On me?”

Kyungsoo slumped back into the couch, giggling to himself a little, “Yeah. That sounds great.”


	2. Chapter 1: I'm Not Angry Anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Here's the update for this story! I'm trying to figure out more and more of a plot for this story, but I defectively don't want it to be a drabble of things. It is a multi-chapter with a slow-build, so I do intend to do exactly that. Just stay with me as I try to make something fun out of this craazy story. Thank you for reading!

Unchecked anger—the one thing of many other things that makes a person a ticking time bomb unless it could be diffused in time. Unfortunately, it was a part of Kyungsoo as person, and Chanyeol knew that aspect more than anyone else. It was what made Kyungsoo dangerous but pitiful. Someone that just needed proper assistance on how to deal with inner emotions that were not expressed in an appropriate manner.

 

Kyungsoo rarely found anything redeemable about ‘people’, to say the least. It was a disappointment to know that the further he thought he was from the edge, then the more people would shove him until he and the verge were on the same line. To Kyungsoo, it was about using his anger and frustration to retaliate with a stronger force. Despite no one pushing him off to his doom, he was still trapped in that thin line.

 

Powers were not a blessing. They were not his curse either. Any power given to a human was a responsibility that came with equal rewards and consequences. Utilizing those skills, a person could go in an almost endless direction of possibilities for him or herself.  So, where did Kyungsoo go in his path?

 

Well… 

 

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were relaxing on a creaky bench at their neighborhood park in the middle of the night. It was calming and satisfying with the wind whistling and leaves rustling through the streets. Suddenly, a spontaneous mugger threatened Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, with complete ignorance of Kyungsoo’s powers. In a poor attempt, Chanyeol joked his way out of the dangerous situation because that was all Chanyeol knew he could do properly without panicking like an idiot. And, frankly, that plan didn’t go accordingly since the mugger attempted to charge the taller man with the switchblade in his right hand.

 

Kyungsoo, being the angry individual he was and is, did not find anything this mugger was doing entertaining, but it did strike a huge nerve as the one the mugger wanted to harm was Chanyeol, an innocent and defenseless person. Then again, Kyungsoo supposed that was how he defined Chanyeol to some extent.

 

Anyway, the mugger was blown away immediately because Kyungsoo concentrated a vortex of compacted air into the palm of his hand and released it recklessly at the mugger’s chest. A thunderous thud echoed when the stranger collided with a nearby tree. As leaves fell like snow, Kyungsoo manipulated the branches to entwine and trap the mugger until the police arrived to handle the rest.

 

The thing was that the mugging was not a problem as Chanyeol recalled. The real predicament was when the police came and began to assess the situation that Kyungsoo sort of lost his temper. 

 

“What the fuck do you mean that I have the pay for his goddamn hospital bills!?” Kyungsoo shouted at the officer that was nervously explaining the reasoning behind it.

 

“Y-you see, his spine is dislocated after your little wind thing. Normally, you can claim self-defense but since the mugger is a human with no special powers, you could’ve disengaged that situation  _ without _ the usage of your powers,” the officer stated, waving his hands around as if he was conducting something. It only aggravated Kyungsoo more. “The involvement of your powers in this situation  _ really  _ complicated matters.” 

 

“But that’s not fair!” Chanyeol threw his voice in fruitlessly.

 

“Technically, the usage of special abilities are only deemed reasonable in self-defense when there’s another similar user trying to engage in combat, or if there’s a high-tier weapon being used,” the officer further explained.

 

Kyungsoo tapped irritatedly his feet on the ground, cracking the surface of the cement in the process. “Okay, then what the fuck are my options here if I don’t want to pay his stupid bills?”

 

“You take a couple courses to show you are able to control your powers in any given situation deemed to endanger your life, others, or both,” the policeman locked his fingers on his buckle, shaking his head seeing that he knew that Kyungsoo was not totally wrong for trying to protect his friend, but the world was not that black and white. “You get proof that you completed the classes with a certificate and show it at city hall for them to clear this all from your record.”

 

Kyungsoo smiled in a way that Chanyeol knew that something big was going to come down. One breath in, then one breath out. Kyungsoo frowned, opened his mouth and exclaimed, “Shit!” In accordance to his emotions, the pavements underneath his feet broke apart as the park quivered for a moment.

 

The police, Chanyeol, and every living thing on the park was scared for their lives as Kyungsoo had to try to calm down after seeing the expressions of the people. The police officer held onto the handle of his taser in defense as Chanyeol ran up to Kyungsoo with a hug, hoping the action would do something. Whispering softly only for the shorter man to hear, “Just take the classes, Kyungsoo-ya. Your rage won’t do anything to fix the problem.” 

 

Kyungsoo obviously regretted being too rough around the edges, but he calmed down after realizing that Chanyeol was correct on his input on the situation. Unrestrained anger will do little to nothing for anyone. For someone that has powers of mass destruction like Kyungsoo, he couldn’t carelessly let his emotions override his logical reasoning. He had to be better for himself. “Fine,” said Kyungsoo, softly giving up his wrathful emotion, easing into the hug as the cement pavements that he damaged began to repair itself.

 

It didn’t help that the classes weren’t free, and that type of thing would piss Kyungsoo off normally, but it was at least discounted with the help of the officer’s referral. It somewhat balanced the rage inside of the elementalist.

 

* * *

 

The first day of anger-management control was nerve-wracking for Kyungsoo. The hallway he was in was too illuminated in a reflective white color that it made the situation seem like he was in a mental asylum.

 

Breath? Okay. Shoes? Tied. Plaid shirt? Buttoned. Hair? Kempt. It was all gonna be okay, right? Kyungsoo repeated the list from beginning to end, and he still felt like he was missing something. Maybe he wasn’t ready to do all of this yet; it was probably a good idea to pay the stupid bills. Actually, then it would lead to him and Chanyeol being homeless. This was far better option. 

 

Still, it was the first time he ever openly wanted to help maintain a good balance of his chemicals in his head. The beige door with the sign that read ‘AMC Session’ on a laminated paper mocked him for being weak at self-control.

 

No.

 

Kyungsoo was strong, with his powers, but he was also strong for choosing to correct his poor tolerance in the world around him. It was normal for a human to want to become stronger than before. This is was Kyungsoo’s path to achieving his version of a ‘better’ self. No running away or using his powers to tear open the ground and hide inside of the earth. Grabbing the handle, he pushed into the door and met with a man that sat on a desk across from the door.

 

“Ah, Mr. Do, I assume?”

 

Kyungsoo half-smiled, swallowing his pride, knowing this was all for his own good, “Yes, you’re correct.”

 

It was gonna be a long day… a long 30 days actually.

 

* * *

  
  


Chanyeol lived pretty quietly in the apartment as he was waiting for Kyungsoo to finish his last anger management class for metahumans. It was a long month, but they got through it fairly decent. As part of celebration, Chanyeol took Kyungsoo out for dinner at a sushi restaurant that was popular among all creatures called Francis’ Universal Corner. “Killer food is what my friends said about this place,” Chanyeol claimed, digging himself comfortably into his leather seat that was across from Kyungsoo.

 

A genuine smile crept up on Kyungsoo, and it was hard to feel any sort of apathy when the epitome of happiness was so close to him. The thought was very much appreciated, however, the customers tested every single part of Kyungsoo’s learning sessions to not be pissed off. 

 

For instance, a family that consisted of a human and a vampire were annoyingly arguing over what to feed their baby. Their table was down the row from where Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were seated. As Kyungsoo could recall from their dismay, something along the lines with ‘No, Clement, he can’t fucking have any uncooked bloody fish! That’s an expensive custom-made order and he’s only one!’ and ‘Excuse me, Vanessa, at least he’ll enjoy the blood on it. He’s half-vampire, anyways.’

 

Frankly, it surely didn’t fucking matter what food they gave their son because Kyungsoo was trying to enjoy his night. But, he wanted to be better! No matter what, he shouldn’t let little things bother him tonight. This moment was not going to be ruined, for Kyungsoo figured that he wanted to show Chanyeol how much he progressed with his anger-management. Sucking up any urge to blast his rage around, Kyungsoo returned to his dinner with Chanyeol. 

 

An alien waiter that was glowing neon-blue and was as swift as lightning, silently dropped the orders that Chanyeol and Kyungsoo requested on the device embedded into the table. It could be expected from such a popular restaurant for it to be equally advanced in its technology as well. 

 

Kyungsoo was thirsty for something other than iced water, so he tapped the middle of the surface of the table, and the little device popped out with a transparent-dual screen for multiple orders at the same time for both parties. Kyungsoo looked down the selection of wine and picked something that he found worth his money, “I’ll just have a glass of Mars wine. Want to share?” 

 

“Sure,” Chanyeol retorted.

 

Kyungsoo placed the order as it was immediately added to the other orders they requested.

 

As soon as the device went back into its dormant place, the lightning-fast alien dropped Kyungsoo’s glass of wine without a trace of single drop on the cloth of the table or on the floor. Kyungsoo chuckled as he hooked the neck of the glass between the crevice of his middle and wedding finger. Bringing the wine a little above his head, Kyungsoo said, “Cheers.”

 

“How’s your eel sushi?” Chanyeol politely asked, dressed in an awkward suit and tie getup. The bowtie wasn’t necessarily tied correctly since the loops were lopsided and crooked. However, they were running late on their reservation and was on the verge of losing their table to a nymph and dwarf, so the bowtie had to be justly compromised.

 

Kyungsoo chuckled nervously, trying to not focus on all the commotions around them, looking at the mirror-like plate of his sushi stare back at him with a fine presence. It was funny how something so beautiful made it difficult to pick at. Kyungsoo suppose he should remember it with a picture first, whipping out his phone from his pants. 

 

“Oh, God,” Chanyeol shook his head in disbelief, badly wanting to laugh for the whole restaurant to hear. To mock the shorter man, he took his plate of tempura and immediately crunched into its nostalgic goodness.

 

A flash went off and Kyungsoo found himself mesmerized at his photography skills. Completely content with how his food came out in the shot, he was able to peacefully try his sushi. Chewing it a little slow, not trying to seem terribly hungry, he finished the first bite before he spoke, “Passable. A little too much sauce for me.”

 

Chanyeol pulled his chair closer to the space underneath the table, but his shoes accidentally collided with Kyungsoo. He apologized quickly and was easily forgiven by the elementalist. The condensation on his glass of water was heavy as other glasses in the background were being refilled. Chanyeol coughed a little before opening his mouth, “Yeah, want to try some of my tempura then? It’s pretty delicious.”

 

“Yes, I would love to,” Kyungsoo picked up a pair of chopsticks and maneuvered the fried shrimp between the two sticks and carried over to his mouth. A crunchy sound escaped as Kyungsoo’s teeth sunk into the battered item. Kiddos to the kitchen staff because Kyungsoo thoroughly enjoyed how they managed to make the tempura juicy despite being crispy. Some fried batter got onto his black dress pants, but it was swiftly brushed off. 

 

“Is it tasty?” Chanyeol shamelessly asked a question he knew the answer to. Tilting his head a little to the side, something like a curious dog, he gazed openly at Kyungsoo with loose hands on his utensils over his own plate of food.

 

“Yes, it is tasty,” Kyungsoo retorted, returning the gaze back at Chanyeol with equal interest. 

 

“I’m happy then.”

 

“Me too,” Kyungsoo genuinely felt those words. 

 

Dinner was a success. The winning conditions being that he went through the whole thing without getting too uncontrollably angry at anything. 

 

Even when a family of mermaids began stirring trouble with each other because the daughter of the prestigious bloodline revealed that the person she was married to was not another mermaid but an ordinary human being. A female one to add to the family’s distaste of the sudden information. 

 

Kyungsoo felt horrible that there was still a lot of interracial discrimination, but he did not want to overstep the line between mermaids. The ones to avoid are especially the ones of royal blood because they can be powerful enemies to fight back due to their massive influence in the real world. Nowadays, they own a lot of the water and music companies established out there. Last thing he would need would be to be forced to pay for the water bill at their rented apartment.

 

It got more complicated when the daughter of the family threw her glass of wine onto the disrespectful aunty that basically shamed the human woman by saying that she bewitched their kin into courtship. The married couple left as soon as they received backlash and never looked back at the mermaid’s hysterical but enraged family.

 

Kyungsoo cheered the strong couple. Hope for the best, right?

 

“I know it’s not right to eavesdrop, but that mermaid’s family is pretty intense,” Chanyeol remarked, playing with the ginger on the side of his dish. His eyes were dazed at the front door at the couple’s actions.

 

Kyungsoo smiled because that was all he could do when Chanyeol’s being this horribly honest, “Oh, shut up.”

 

“Hey,” Chanyeol softly spoke, picking up the glass of water in his right hand, “cheers, Kyungsoo-ya. I’m proud of you.”

 

Kyungsoo mimicked the actions and could feel his jaws hurting from smiling this much in one night. He nodded gratefully and gently clinked his glass with Chanyeol’s glass. They both sipped peacefully at their beverages and continued on with their dinner.

 

Their lives may not be perfect, but Kyungsoo was going to make the most of it each day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave kudos, comments, questions, or anything you feel like expressing. I am here for you to talk to. I love talking to all of y'all. Welp, I hope everyone has a great day. Thank you for reading this far!


	3. Chapter 2: "You Do Not Just Wake Up and Become the Butterfly"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I've been mia all this time and not writing because I've been working and trying to learn to become an adult by paying bills and all that. It's different than what I've been used to all this time (living with my family and all), but I'm very content with where I am, but it's a struggle nonetheless. I apologize for not updating still tho. I'll try to make as much time for this story since I like the potential of it and all that jazz. Just please be patient, my friends.
> 
> The quote in the title came from a short poem by Rupi Kaur.

It wasn’t like Chanyeol approved of violence, but there will be rare times he will allow it to happen.

 

Suddenly, Kyungsoo called at 7:02pm. A tired breath hitched before he put up a front for his best friend, “Hey! I won’t be home for another hour or so.”

 

“I figured,” Chanyeol shrugged as he walked back from the kitchen to the couch with a tub of ice cream. A sigh came from the other side of the phone, which Chanyeol found adorable while he also found the perfect position to eat his delectable treat and watch the news on the TV.

 

“Fuck. I’m on TV again, aren’t I?” said Kyungsoo, an explosion was muffled in the background.

 

“Yup.”

 

Chanyeol speculated the scene of a battle of superpowers between his roommate and a warlock. Apparently by the news reporter broadcasting the live show, the warlock was an evil descendent that was supposed to be sealed away by highly skilled magicians and priests. A mysterious cult group worked over a course of generations to finally reawaken their dark master, but it seemed that none of the group members remained because they gave up their own souls to the evil warlock.

 

How did Kyungsoo get involved? Chanyeol probably could guess the story to that judging how the battle took place in the middle of the street that was in the same vicinity of Kyungsoo’s favorite bakery. Seeing from the live news that the same bakery has been blown to smithereens, Chanyeol could deduct that was what snapped Kyungsoo’s nerves. It was one thing to fuck with Kyungsoo, but it was whole  _ different  _ thing to fuck with Kyungsoo’s favorite places and things.

 

“Hey, Yeol?” Kyungsoo held onto the phone desperately as his earth wall covered him from the energy blasts from the warlock.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Just know,” a little static came between the connection, “I didn’t fucking instigate this fight.  _ He _ blew up Madame Petite’s Bakery! Fuckers gotta pay somehow.”

 

Chanyeol knew this should be serious since this warlock could actually destroy and fuck this world up, but he thoroughly enjoyed how Kyungsoo nonchalantly handled this situation. “Yeah, yeah, just don’t be too careless and come home already,” Chanyeol ended the call but not before he heard a tiny retort from Kyungsoo.

 

“Thank you, Chanyeol-ssi.”

 

* * *

  
  


Kyungsoo simply wanted a tiramisu for himself and a strawberry shortcake for Chanyeol. This was what people called ‘being friends’ is: one friend giving something to another friend without having or expecting anything in return for the kind gesture. Instead, Kyungsoo was stuck with being in a heated battle between a supernatural old man. Some friend Kyungsoo was… 

 

How did this all start? 

 

In a world of pure coincidences, the bakery that Kyungsoo loved frequently visiting for his sweet tooth urges was nearby the apartment structure that the sinister old fart exploded out of. A little bit of red lightning flew around the street, and one of those bolts decided to strike down Madame Petite’s Bakery. In pure shock, Kyungsoo was literally 10 feet away from the store before it was blasted. 

 

One angry shout at the warlock combined with an equally destructive lightning bolt at the old man’s face, then it sort of got out of hand. That would bring Kyungsoo back to reality where he was taking shelter behind a deformed wall made from the material of the street.

 

Something spoken that was close to gibberish to Kyungsoo’s ears was heard, and he was very certain that the warlock was angrily cursing him. Although, it wouldn’t matter to Kyungsoo because he wanted revenge for the beloved bakery. “You’re gonna get it, asshole!” Kyungsoo dramatically rolled into plain vision, caring very little about the debris getting caught into his tattered white hoodie.

 

The warlock glared into Kyungsoo’s eyes and realized that he may be a lion with pride, but he entered into a den of a dormant dragon. A beast against another beast; the law of the jungle would only allow the strongest of the two to survive. This was a fight that he found himself begging to win. A bloodthirst to quench, to satisfy the itch in his gut. 

 

Kyungsoo conjured a four-sided box from the surface of the ground. It closed in and shut the warlock inside. Despite not having vision of where the warlock was, Kyungsoo could still sense where the dreaded aura was coming from. He took a breather and could sense movement being made inside, which he responded immediately to by using the roots hidden within the walls to lash out and entangle the warlock’s body. 

 

“Forgive me,” Kyungsoo plainly spoke to the air, stretching his unused muscles after not engaging in serious fights in such a long time. “I know you just woke up and want to continue what you did before you were sealed off, but this new era isn’t for you anymore.”

 

The small silence of the battle now that there wasn’t any rays of energy flying everywhere. The helicopter above was still broadcasting the fight, but Kyungsoo was sure this was all over. The reason the box was there was because what was happening inside shouldn’t be viewed for the whole world to watch.

 

The more the warlock struggled free and tried to chant spells, then the roots would grow instantaneously and immobilize him from head to toe. After, the earth would rise and engulf him to add another layer of encasement. He sensed little to no bloodlust coming from Kyungsoo, and he remembered an emotion that he forgot was still there in his heart—fear. A man that did not even see the great warlock as a threat was somebody to not cross paths with. Unable to tell from the moment his eyes closed, he could tell there was a gas being omitted from the vines that was similar to his sleeping spells. Chuckling, it must’ve been sympathy.

 

Kyungsoo watched as he made the box descend back into the earth. He intended to send the warlock to his death rather than to allow him to be sealed again. It would take a few more minutes before the warlock reaches the core of the Earth and basically be incinerated. 

 

If it weren’t for Kyungsoo, the warlock would’ve done more damage than just a measly street. It’s a good thing spellcasters tend to chant their powerful attacks before they would be unleashed, or else this fight would’ve been longer. Kyungsoo sighed as he didn’t like the idea of killing, but he suppose his actions balanced itself out. 

 

* * *

 

“I’m home,” Kyungsoo walked inside the apartment, dragging himself to the couch. He found Chanyeol already sleeping on the couch with the TV on the news channel. He could safely assume that Chanyeol was watching him fight out there. It was a weird habit of Chanyeol to stay awake until he could assure himself that Kyungsoo would win a battle and then go to sleep and wait for the elementalist to return home. 

 

Well, the couch looked like a good place to knock out, but it seemed Kyungsoo’s ridiculously tall roommate took up all the space.

 

Moving to the couch, sitting on the floor with his legs sprawled out, he rest his back on the couch and laid his head on the empty space on the pillow next to Chanyeol’s head and closed his eyes. 

 

This kind of life wasn’t all that bad. 

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Chanyeol woke up, the sun was already settled comfortably in the sky. He peered over to the bottom of the couch to see Kyungsoo casually laid out on the floor next to him. “You could’ve just gone to bed,” Chanyeol thoughtlessly said, nonchalantly getting up, retrieving a blanket from his room, and draping it over Kyungsoo.

 

The sight was missing something. Oh. A pillow. Chanyeol grabbed the couch pillow and gently lifted Kyungsoo’s head to slip the comfy object to support the crook of Kyungsoo’s neck. Chanyeol would love to believe he was the bestest of all best friends for doing that out of the good of his heart.

 

How funny to think that they were not always like this. Through the years that Chanyeol has been with Kyungsoo, he could truthfully say that it was wild ride to get to the somewhat peaceful days that they were having.

 

Those federal offenses that Kyungsoo had were already there when Chanyeol met the elementalist. The reasoning for those offenses were generally the same: Kyungsoo had an uncontrollable tantrum, whether it was on purpose or not, and it was equally destructive as the last or worse. It took a while before Chanyeol was able to get Kyungsoo to speak honestly about what those ‘offenses’ were. 

 

Transitioning to the kitchen, Chanyeol thought oolong tea would be a good way to begin the day. In an instant, the kettle of water he had readied and placed over the stove began to scream and whistle. The advancement of technology was beautiful as Chanyeol proudly served himself a cup of hot water. Of course, there were a variety of stoves out there, but the one Chanyeol had was a device that acted also as an oven while being capable of delivering instant heat energy to whatever it touches with a customizable setting for all sorts of kitchen prep. 

 

The teabag in his cup floated amidst the steaming water, releasing flavoring and color to the plain water. Chanyeol sat in the kitchen table while contemplating about the first time Kyungsoo made his name known to most of the governed world. Blowing carefully at the surface, ripples traveling from one end to the other. 

 

Chanyeol relaxed for a while, taking the occasion sips at his tea. Once boredom began to settle in his head, he decided it was time to go out and do a little bit of errands. As quietly as a fox, he left the apartment while dressed in a red plaid and classic ripped-black jeans. 

 

The first place he visited was the local coffee shop. The walk there wasn’t exactly long either, but the foot traffic was always something that Chanyeol would dread with his rolled eyes. Being in such an advanced world, there was a lot of different species on the streets running around. Fortunately, Chanyeol lived in the part of the city where the crime rate was only about 10%. In other places like Queens, the crime rate there was about 80%.

 

Nonetheless, once he got through the sliding glass doors, Chanyeol’s senses were immediately reminded of the various drinks he had here at this very shop. With parts of his tongue replicating  the taste of the past blend of sweet and bitter in perfect harmony, the tall man had to get his dose of coffee for the day.

 

Despite the very vulgar images of an exotic space monkey pooping coffee beans into a machine that would then grind and turn those exact beans into the shop’s famous coffee blend, Chanyeol would swear on his soul that it was actually very appealing to anyone’s, or thing’s, taste buds. The regular house special especially paired well with the breakfast croissant; a nice way to boost one’s day. The neat thing about the space monkey was that the beans were loaded with a different form of caffeine: one that would not result in a crash after a set amount of hours. 

 

Before judging it, yes, it was proven safe to consume for the general public. All new material in items, such as food and drinks, that are not normally found in earth need to be tested for a couple years for its effects on the public’s health or the environment’s safety. The government are very strict about these type of subjects to ensure that the planet doesn’t get an unwanted epidemic of an unknown virus.

 

God, there was that one disaster that Chanyeol remembered about a company that didn’t thoroughly test out the beverages they were selling, and the result was horrible. The DNA and bodies of the consumers of the company’s drinks mutated into a certain invasive species that were detrimental to the planet. A worldwide effort was made to keep the affected town contained, and there was no known cure for those that mutated, so a lot of death occurred that day. The company was sued to the ground, and the world slowly moved on but always kept record of what went into the public after that grave situation.

 

Taking a table for himself in the corner, he brought a poem book he bought from a Barnes & Noble to read while he enjoyed the day. To challenge his creativity, he would usually draw a picture that suited a particular piece to Chanyeol. A stream of white fog from the coffee warmly caressing underneath Chanyeol’s chin while a thick scent of bittersweet caffeine reminded his body the delicate taste of the black beverage. “Tell them… I was the warmest place you knew, and you turned me cold,” whispered Chanyeol to himself, repeating the lines over in his head until it became a mantra. 

 

It was funny to think that after 45 minutes of drawing on a notepad that he bought at a local 99cent Store that he would end up with a mildly impressive piece of art for the poem he chose. Instead, he made a comic strip of two stick figures making an incredibly absurd joke. “I tried,” Chanyeol said, finishing up the last remnants of his coffee. 

 

A person suddenly landed on top of his table, which completely caught Chanyeol off-guard as he gawked at the stranger in front of him. “Uhhhh,” Chanyeol dumbfoundedly uttered, “hi?”

 

“Pleasure to meet you,” the stranger said before hurriedly getting underneath the table to dodge an incoming kettlepot. 

 

In the direction where the object was throw, Chanyeol looked to see an alien employee of the store looking furious at the guy with platinum blond bangs. 

 

A repetalian cyborg proceeded to hiss loudly, “You’re not getting away after insulting me like that!”

 

Chanyeol turned to the guy taking shelter under his table. “Dude, what the hell did you do to piss him off?”

 

“Before you ask, I’m Baekhyun, and I just happened to tell him that the upcoming mating season for him will be the poorest experience he’s ever had.” 

 

“And why would you say that?”

 

“To help a trooper out! It’s tough at out here, y’know?”

 

The conversation didn’t give too much context to Chanyeol, but it was enough to get him a general picture.

 

The cyborg rampaged through tables and chairs with fangs flashed forward. It would take approximately two minutes before the cyborg reached the corner that Chanyeol and Baekhyun was at and beat the living shit out of Baekhyun with a good possibility of Chanyeol being caught in the crossfire. In the very short timeframe, he made a quick phone call home and hurried to describe his general environment.

 

Baekhyun began to scream in a high-pitch as Chanyeol followed after. 

 

“I got youuuu!!!!!” The cyborg shouted, closing the space between his mouth and Baekhyun rapidly.

 

It was very fortunate that a wall made from the material of the store’s tile floor rose and braced the impact of the cyborg, which coincidentally knocked the cyborg unconscious. On the other line of the phone that Chanyeol was crushing with his vice grip, a voice came through with a sigh, “Really? Don’t make troublesome friends, okay, Chanyeol-ssi?”

 

Chanyeol made a nervous laugh before retorting, “Y-yes, thank y-you, Kyungsoo-ya.” The phone hung up shortly after.

 

It was there that Chanyeol met the metahuman Baekhyun.

 

* * *

 

“And you’re telling me that this boy,” Kyungsoo pointed at the guy with platinum blond bangs sitting on the couch in their apartment, “was the one that put you in danger today?”

 

“Yeah, but I mean, he’s actually really cool,” Chanyeol, who sat next to Baekhyun, began to defend his new friend.

 

“I can’t necessarily see the  _ whole  _ future of someone, but I can definitely see a part of it. I see where their path will lead to, but the path their future holds can always change if the right action is done. And vice versa,” Baekhyun explained his powers.

 

“Uh huh,” Kyungsoo nodded off, not taking in any of the bullshit he just heard. “And we’re casually bringing strangers to this house because… ?” Clearly directing the last part at Chanyeol.

 

The clairvoyant man had his hand on Chanyeol’s thigh before sensing danger in the shared future between him and the taller man. “Okay, I can see your future that I’m going to get my ass whooped, so I’m going to quietly take my leave,” Baekhyun laughed nonchalantly, getting up from the couch and heading for the door.

 

With the infamous puppy eyes tactic, Chanyeol pushed his lower lip out and begged, “Come on, Soo-ya, it sounds cool to have a friend that can see into the future.”

 

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes into his head, conjuring a wind wall to stop Baekhyun from taking a step further, “Okay, I’ll give you a chance. Say anything stupid, your ass is mine.”

 

“Kinky,” Baekhyun remarked with a wink, earning him a slap to the face with a force of wind. “Ow!”

 

“Yeah, I don’t like him already,” Kyungsoo stated, leaving the room to let Chanyeol indulge in his new metahuman friend. 

 

Chanyeol shrugged as he innocently looked at Baekhyun. “He’s like that, you’ll get over it.”

 

“You’re surely a fate changer,” Baekhyun sat back down on the couch next to Chanyeol, luring him in with his words. “Twice I was supposed to get my ass brutally kicked, but you stopped them from happening.”

 

Not sure how to respond properly, Chanyeol said in a form of a question, “I guess that’s convenient for you then?”

 

“Quite. Just ‘cause I can see into the future doesn’t mean everything is set in stone. With no action or will to change the future, then what I see will certainly happen.”

 

“Yet you don’t do anything to change your future?”

 

“Because it’s simpler to let things come naturally. I prefer I don’t control every little thing that happens in people’s lives at every moment, including myself,” Baekhyun casually stretched out his arms, yawning aloud, “I just happen to interject when I find something interesting.”

 

“Yikes, that sounds scary.”

 

Baekhyun simply won’t tell that the whole situation he has with Chanyeol was fascinating. Not just once, but twice has the taller man changed the future. The first at the shop and the second being with Kyungsoo. In both futures he saw, Baekhyun was supposed to be beaten up to a pulp, but those never came. Furthermore, Baekhyun noted that Chanyeol willingly tries to change the future. An unpredictable man was a man worth observing more. Gesturing for Chanyeol’s hand, Baekhyun nodded that the taller man should trust the action, which he did. “Ah, when Kyungsoo gets hungry, just go eat Mexican food together. He’s not in the mood for anything Asian.”

 

The prediction baffled Chanyeol. “What?” 

 

“I’m going to get going,” Baekhyun began to head for the door, unconcerned of how disappointed Chanyeol was, “besides, I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you soon, anyway.”

 

_ Mysterious _ , Chanyeol thought, subconsciously following the clairvoyant man. 

 

Once Baekhyun left, Chanyeol was cleaning a few dishes in the sink before Kyungsoo came into the kitchen to announce that he was hungry. A playback of Baekhyun’s words reanimated in his head, and he chuckled as he opened his mouth to say, “How about Mexican food?”

 

Kyungsoo almost made a surprised face but held it back. He simply agreed and left the kitchen for Chanyeol to finish up his current action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave kudos, comments, or questions if y'all have the time and motivation to do so! I am always here to listen and discuss on things that I've written about. I hope you all have a wonderful day!


	4. Chapter 3: We Stand in the Middle of the Seesaw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI there! Thank you everyone for reading up to this point! I've been trying to write as much as possible with my time nowadays. I've also been trying to get a new job, so hopefully by the next update I'll already be training for the new job. I just have high hopes for myself is all. But yes! Please enjoy this. I appreciate every one of you guys!
> 
> P.S. I also would like to thank @alostautumn2k16 for the suggestion of shifting personalities! It was quite interesting to write it out since I already had their traits set out and all, so this really made me put them in a new perspective! Thank you for your wonderful idea!

Chanyeol kept his distance from Kyungsoo, not budging from his position on the couch. He frowned! Frowned—a thing that the optimistic and happy-go-lucky individual did not often do voluntarily. To add to his dismay, he was being god-awfully lazy today. The reason for his odd behavior? A fucking switching-personality controller.

 

“Hey, Chanyeol-ssi!” Kyungsoo was casually cooking a few sundaes (basically a blood sausage) for lunch with a bright smile subconsciously on his face, “I’m absurdly positive about everything, and I fucking hate that I _can't_ hate it!”

 

“Better than being skeptical about everything and being constantly annoyed at every little thing,” Chanyeol deadpanned, placing a pillow over his head to calm a headache. Anxiety was riding up his arms when he thought he was being too rude to Kyungsoo. He was an idiot. No! He shouldn’t talk about himself in such a degrading way. It’s not healthy. He has to be better!

 

“I’m in the mood to go for a walk around the neighborhood after we eat. Do you want to join?” Kyungsoo asked, turning his head around to look back at Chanyeol, who obviously didn’t care about exercise or outdoor activities in the slightest. “I’ll take that as a no.”

 

Meanwhile, the uncooked rice in the pot was being steamed faster than a typical rice cooker because Kyungsoo was able to grasp the technique of manipulating air-pressure and heat to cook. Plus, it saves the amount of energy they would use. It benefits everyone! Kyungsoo had so much energy to spend on trying to make his life a little easier rather than being sinfully passive about everything. Normally, this would exhaust the crap out of him, but if it weren’t for the earlier event. This normal day wouldn’t make it to this point.

 

Speaking of that matter, there was a street vendor in the early morning that advertised about switching personalities with someone for only five minutes. Originally, Kyungsoo was supposed to enjoy the day watching his line of soap operas at home, but he was effortlessly persuaded by a bubbly tall roommate to hangout instead. Of course, Chanyeol, being the inquisitive fool he was, had to check out the vendor and had to get Kyungsoo involved too. An expected mishap was bound to happen, and it was Kyungsoo's ignorance to blame that he chose to not see this coming.

 

Okay, maybe Kyungsoo was discrediting Chanyeol and his activities a little too much, but he supposed he was sincerely hoping that the day would just be normal without anything wild to occur during the time they spend together. To be honest, Kyungsoo supposed it had something to do with ‘it looks fun’ and ‘it’ll only be five minutes, Soo!’ that made him slightly optimistic about sticking with Chanyeol for the day. Well, those were phrases said the past five _hours_ ago. Apparently, the woman operating the stand had to apologize for the device coincidentally malfunctioning and setting the time period of the effects to last longer than intended. Unfortunately, there was no way to reverse the effects, so all they could do was wait for it to wear off naturally. The estimated time for the effects to last was roughly 24 hours…

 

Still... it wasn’t so bad. Even when Chanyeol was yelling a huge fucking storm about the major inconvenience and asking for a supervisor or manager to speak with to finish the rest of his rant to.

 

 _It’s a street vendor, though. There isn’t really a manager or supervisor besides the person operating the stand,_ Kyungsoo had thought to himself.

 

Nonchalantly, Kyungsoo was okay with it all. He had felt like he could actually get through it and not suffer any major drawbacks on his emotional welfare. Maybe it was part of Chanyeol’s personality that was affecting him. Or maybe not? He didn’t want to over-analyze it.

 

Kyungsoo felt empathy for Chanyeol since the fellow didn’t go to the anger-management classes like Kyungsoo did, so that newfound rage was gonna be difficult to manage for a little. It was good thing Chanyeol’s personality was inside of Kyungsoo because he was being very supportive of every little thing that Chanyeol was going through. He had hugged the tall man and relaxed him with a caring back rub while he ensured the non-metahuman that it was going to be okay.

 

And now that would bring Kyungsoo to where he is now.

 

“I… don’t know. I want to go out, but ugh, people are so fucking annoying,” Chanyeol muttered into his pillow.

 

“What did you say?” Kyungsoo made a surprised face to see such strong language early in the morning. 

 

Removing the pillow off his face, Chanyeol stated audibly: “I. Fucking. Hate. People.”

 

“Oh, come on, a walk is something you like to do,” Kyungsoo’s voice soothed the roughness inside of Chanyeol. In a few strides, he was able to stand over the couch where Chanyeol was, “Go out with me, and I’ll buy you your favorite ice cream, yeah?”

 

“Ugh,” Chanyeol turned around to face the couch more, “fine, only because I’m totally weak against you when you act all soft.”

 

“Let’s eat,” Kyungsoo used a compressed vortex underneath Chanyeol to force him out of the couch and on his feet safely. “I’ll ensure you it’ll be fun today.”

 

 

* * *

  


And fun it was.

 

With switched personalities, it still did nothing to affect how they interacted in public together. It almost felt like Chanyeol and Kyungsoo usually are: ordinary.

 

“Hey,” Kyungsoo started, digging himself comfortably into the metal chair outside of the Space Yum Cold Cow Cream shop, a place he couldn’t judge too hard on its awkward wording in its name because the icy treats were seriously amazing, “I’ve been thinking about something.”

 

“Uh huh,” Chanyeol laid his arms on the table in front of him, sitting across from his best friend in tranquility, tracing invisible circle on the table surface.

 

With a messy cup left behind from the Vietnamese coffee-flavored ice cream Kyungsoo had, he subconsciously was letting himself illuminate by bending the light around himself, “With your personality, it kinda feels easy to just say this, but you really saved me back then.”

 

“How so?” Chanyeol subtly perked up, giving Kyungsoo direct eye contact. "Also, you starting to glow a little too brightly."

 

“Whoops, sorry," Kyungsoo sheepishly shrugged, "it was during the time you and I were barely roommates, and I thought you were gonna just leave, be like every other roommate,” Kyungsoo depressingly laughed, letting the melancholy fill the air, “so, I began to assume maybe you might’ve left because you realize that you can’t live with a monster,”

 

“If you’re a monster, then the alien that served us our ice cream totally is a human with skin that doesn’t freeze on contact and doesn’t have icicle for eyes,” Chanyeol sassed, getting a light tap from Kyungsoo’s shoes.

 

“I’m serious,” Kyungsoo stated. “You saved me from myself.”

 

Chanyeol scoffed as if the comment was nothing too far from impossible. He pushed out his arm and held his fist with a pinky out. “Remember our promise?”

 

Kyungsoo blushed a little to think that the idiotic and simple-minded Chanyeol could bring out such an old thing from the past, but he indulged in the moment. “Of course,” sticking his own pinky out to link with Chanyeol’s, “and I’m still keeping mine, right?”

 

“Obviously, dumbass,” Chanyeol rolled his eyes.

 

 

* * *

  


By nightfall, Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were heading home when Kyungsoo bumped into a person. “I’m sorry!” The elementalist immediately blurted out.

 

“It’s—’Yeol’s friend?” A familiar face appeared before him in the middle of the sidewalk.

 

“Oh, it’s Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said, unconcerned at the friend he was showing off last week.

 

“Hm,” Baekhyun put his finger on his chin, contemplating his next course of action before briefly holding onto Chanyeol’s hand and shortly laughed afterwards. “I see. Y’all will be fine. Just until tomorrow morning.”

 

“Oh, thank you, I guess?” Kyungsoo was a little bewildered by it before he remembered that the fellow was a metahuman too.

 

“If you want to have an interesting night, you should visit the shop that I just came out of,” Baekhyun pointed directly at a quaint shop with a big neon letters spelling ‘CBX.’

 

Apparently, after a little chit chatting, it’s a shared shop that Baekhyun and two other friends own together. The shift for Baekhyun ended an hour ago, hence why the clairvoyant man was leaving. Kyungsoo didn’t feel like asking why he didn’t leave until an hour after his shift ended. Still, the mysterious shop attracted his interest heavily, and it had to be the curse of Chanyeol’s natural inquisitive nature. Fucking damn him… okay, but also bless him… there.

 

The outside looked like it didn’t have a single customer inside, but the magic of the place was that it changed entirely when Kyungsoo and Chanyeol stepped through the door.

 

They passed through a watery forcefield before the scenery changed into jungle-themed nightclub. A crowded room of aliens and humans dancing to electro house music. Speakers hidden somewhere in the corners of the room boomed so hard and clear to the bassline. Normally, Kyungsoo would be bugged to hell with this, but he actually enjoyed the scene quite a lot. “Dude, doesn’t this make you want to dance like crazy!?” Kyungsoo shouted to Chanyeol, who looked like he was contemplating murdering a few people in his radius of personal space.

 

“Yeah, I certainly am thrilled to see all this,” Chanyeol almost yawned before holding tightly to Kyungsoo’s hand. “Just don’t lose me.”

 

“I won’t,” Kyungsoo smiled back at his best friend, “if I remember what Baekhyun said before leaving us, this part of the shop is to hype up the vibe of the people before they would want to see anything related to fortune-telling.”

 

“Just go straight for those stairs that descend into the darkness,” Chanyeol whispered his observation to Kyungsoo’s ears.

 

It made Kyungsoo flush at the proximity, but he acknowledged Chanyeol’s suggestion. They were supposed to skip the nightclub aspect of the shop and head into the next room to speak to a guy named Chen. Holding onto Chanyeol still, Kyungsoo apologized to the passing people and aliens as he tried to maneuver himself around the crowd to get to the stairs. Just as he barely got to the front of the stairs, Kyungsoo could feel his feet and body wanting to jam to the music badly.

 

“Want to dance?” Chanyeol audibly asked behind the elementalist.

 

“How did you—”

 

“I know myself well enough that when the vibe in an area is good, like _really_ good, I want to melt and blend into it too,” Chanyeol laughed, dragging Kyungsoo by the interlocks of his fingers back into the crowd to dance wildly like animals in heat.

 

It was electrifying, for Kyungsoo, that is. He never really danced like this because he never found the motivation to do so, but once he started to let his rhythm sync with the song playing, it was a newfound magic for Kyungsoo to let his body react the same way a tree would react to being struck by lightning—catch on fire. The fun multiplied when Kyungsoo casually turned to his side to see Chanyeol first-pumping into the air with the same amount of energy. He couldn’t even tell if their personalities switched back already, but Kyungsoo was enchanted by the bubbliness unfolding within him.

 

Cocoons hatching within him; butterflies taking flight. It was a beautiful metamorphosis for him.

 

It wasn’t until the sweat breaking down on Kyungsoo’s face was ubiquitous that it was about time to complete what they originally seeked to do upon entering this shop: go see the person named Chen and… do what again? Crap, don’t tell Kyungsoo that his memory was gonna be shit because of Chanyeol’s personality!? “I, ha, I, Jesus, I’m so tired,” Kyungsoo was panting, pulling Chanyeol, who looked like Kyungsoo on a typical morning (asleep),  toward the staircase.

 

“I’m,” Chanyeol loudly snored, “gonna,” snore, “pretend,” snore again, “that I’m not awake.”  


Kyungsoo smiled because that sarcasm was a little endearing especially since he would almost never see Chanyeol this bitchy to him ever again in years to come. However, forcing Chanyeol up those stairs wasn’t a problem until it became one. With each step forward to the top, reality looked like it came undone and materialized a whole new room where there was no sound of the ear-piercing music from earlier. Not one strong vibration. It was calm in juxtaposition to the earlier environment.

 

A old jukebox was playing a Charleston song, and the jazzy music was audible but not overbearing. Kyungsoo looked around as he realized that the room was certainty real and not a trick to the eyes. Medieval paintings with maple and gold colored items were decorated all over the room. There was a desk across from Kyungsoo and Chanyeol, and someone was obviously sitting the leather chair that had its back facing them. Even with switched personalities, Kyungsoo’s natural subconscious activated itself. Using the wind, he turned the chair around and revealed a Korean man with hair in a mahogany color that uncannily matched the background.

 

“Don’t tell me you’re Chen,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. Switched personality or not.

 

“I am, and why are you so rude?” The man replied, hands up in defense.

 

“Baekhyun told us about you,”Chanyeol uttered aloud, still pretending that he was asleep to avoid anything troublesome. “I’m also _not_ awake right now.”

 

“Hilarious,” Chen deadpanned, standing up, touching the edges of his wooden desk, sliding his delicate skin across it without a fear of its crisp edge leaving a mark.

 

Dangerous was what Kyungsoo was sensing, but he held his ground and knew he had the power to defend himself and Chanyeol from anything this guy had up his sleeves. Somehow, for a split moment, Kyungsoo retained his own traits again, exclaiming at the ‘sleeping’ Chanyeol, shaking him angrily, “I told you to not make troublesome friends!”

 

“I’m not trying to,” he muttered, only opening a sliver of his eyelids to the light of the room. Yet, Chanyeol was unfazed by the action. He planned on going down with his idea because he was lazy to do anything else. Even when the guilt inside of him being helpless swamped his stomach, it was better to let it all slip through his hands.

 

“Don’t worry,  the name’s Jongdae. Baekhyun’s friends are mine as well,” Formerly known as Chen, Jongdae stated assuringly, gesturing a friendly handshake between him and Kyungsoo. The two met halfway in the room and faced eye-to-eye to confirm the new acquaintance with each other.

 

“I still don’t like you, but I’m Chanyeol’s best friend, and every fiber of my body is telling me to be open and welcome you, and God, I fucking talk a lot,” Kyungsoo rambled on, realizing that Chanyeol’s demeanor has resurfaced upon him.

 

“Well, I should be clear that Baekhyun and I get along since our powers are quite similar,” Jongdae explained, walking over to his jukebox while tapping his feet on the maple floor, “he sees the future. I see the _past_.”

 

Chanyeol scoffed, scaring Kyungsoo at the sudden action, fully opening his eyes to face Jongdae, “So, time-travelling buddies? Nice.”

 

“Of course, there’s an extent to our powers, as for all metahumans,” the wood creaked as Jongdae stepped around and looked at them with curiosity of a cat, “Baekhyun can only see as far into the future as long as he makes physical contact with the person first.”

 

“That sounds fair,” Chanyeol and Kyungsoo said simultaneously, embarrassed at the moment shortly after.

 

Jongdae continued undisturbed by their remark, “Secondly, the determining factor of how far he’s able to see someone’s future is based entirely on how _physically_ intimate he is with the said person.”

 

“Then what’s your limitation of your powers?” Chanyeol interjected, clearly not afraid of letting his concerns being heard.

 

“Similar,” Jongdae shrugged, picking out a cigarette pack from his pants pocket, inhaling the fumes of the self-lighting stick, “Make sure I’m making physical contact with someone or with a group of people,” pushing out a smoke of rainbows that filled the mundane room, noting that the smoke produced from this particular cigarette was healthy for the body as it was made from a mixture of unicorn hair and Leprechaun sweat (not very appealing at first, but it sure has a fruity and light taste) “I can choose to go in anyone’s past and bring along with me the rest of the people in contact with my body. However, the past is settled. Nothing can be changed, but it can be observed.”

 

“I see,” Chanyeol began to wonder into his head, contemplating deeply about something.

 

“Still, I can go only so far into the past depending on how mentally attached a person is to someone I’m physically connected to or to myself. It’s a troublesome power sometimes.”

 

“Hm,” Kyungsoo did like the explanation, and it wasn’t complicated for him to understand since his comprehension wasn’t exactly top notch at the moment.

 

Jongdae looked at his gold watch and noted the time before he gave a stern glance at Chanyeol, knowing that the man was perceptive thanks to the other man’s personality, “My, oh my, the time surely does fly when you’re chatting,” Jongdae began to push the two towards the wooden door, “have a safe morning!”

 

It was the last thing the two heard before they were spontaneously shoved out to the… entrance of the shop? Wasn’t there was supposed to be stairs and a club? And morning really was coming up already! Kyungsoo was wondering why his personality was beginning to return to him.

 

Kyungsoo sighed, “I fucking hate that place. Time is not consistent there.”

 

“Guess you can say, they’re _timeless_ ,” Chanyeol winked at Kyungsoo.

 

Okay. The whole section about this life being not so bad, well, change of plans, because Kyungsoo was sure this type of life was awful. As awful as drinking orange juice after brushing his teeth. This day was gonna be long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave your questions, comments, and other things! Or nothing at all! That's all good. I'm just happy y'all read it. I'm content with it all.


	5. Chapter Four: Scratch the Lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't updated in forever! Well, here's one for y'all! Thank you everyone for reading and keeping up this far! I have been beyond busy these days with my new job. I've been paying bills as usual, mentally stable but have a little stress here and there, but my life is coming together. I just wished my job made it easy for me to get proper sleep or to at least allow me to update my stories a little. I have not forgotten about this story! So no worries there! I'm just super slow at updating atm. I promise I want to make this story complete at some point for y'all. Please enjoy the chapter!

In a world where normal was constantly challenged and changed, what really defined something, a person, alien, unknown material, or even an activity as normal? Chanyeol wasn’t exactly able to come up with an answer for every single living being since normal can only be defined in thought-out systems of niches. An ant colony with soldier ants that do not protect the queen would be _abnormal_. A human being eating his or her own baby could be equal parts horrendous and abnormal. To Chanyeol, someone that has to live constantly with things that don’t always fit in the box of ordinary, he has to make the ‘unordinary’ things ‘ordinary’ to embrace a deeper understanding of reality around him. Furthermore, his optimistic empathy was what has kept him sane all these years.

 

“As I said,” an alien with a hand that had more smaller hands for fingers pushed Chanyeol against a brick wall, “I want all of your fucking money, dumbass!”

 

“So hard to earn a living nowadays, can’t you all just be good citizens and not mug me?” Chanyeol tried to appeal to any emotion to the mugger and his accomplices, which were two ordinary humans that cheered their boss. His naive attitude did nothing to receive any empathy from the muggers. He still didn't want to panic too bad because he wanted to believe that he could foolishly change their hearts with reason. 

 

Still, this _too_ was a normal thing. The crime rate may have been lower than in other places, but it was still very much present nonetheless. The leftover percentage of crime didn't magically stop or disappear. therefore, Chanyeol wasn’t exempted from experiencing it firsthand.

 

“Look here,” hand alien sighed, “Give me your wallet or get pummeled into human _soup_.”

 

In any other circumstance that Chanyeol had not met Kyungsoo, he would be that exact soup. But that really wasn’t the case here.

 

This seriously was the last resort, but Chanyeol preferred his face to physically stay the way it was. “Kyungsoo!” he yelled as loud as he could get, which enraged the alien and provoked him to throw a giant multitude of clenched fists at Chanyeol’s direction.

 

It should’ve gone smoothly. It was what the alien wanted to think. However, the fist he sent was held in place by something stronger than the force of the punches. The overwhelming arm strength was something this alien boasted, and it was rendered useless by something he couldn’t fathom on the spot. That ‘something’ being a simple trick of wind-manipulation by pressing a condensed wind on the entire arm(s… ?).

 

A phone call to Chanyeol’s phone was soon made, and, of course, the tall man answered it immediately to first hear his roommate’s angry voice, “I fucking told you to not make any fucking troublesome friends!”

 

“These aren’t my friends, though,” Chanyeol whined, confusing the hell out of the thugs with who he was talking on the phone with.

 

“Really now?” Kyungsoo nodded to himself, lifting his finger and swishing his finger around before he swiped it to the right. The motion simultaneously corresponded with the alien and the accomplices being tackled to their right by a sudden force.

 

Chanyeol wanted to be relieved, but the idea that he could’ve been fatally injured earlier still has him shook. This was a reality for others, though. Aliens and humans all die at alarmingly high rates that it sort of depresses someone to stare at it.

 

“Thanks again, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol chuckled, walking away from the scene unscathed. “I guess you want me home now, huh?”

 

“Duh.”

 

“How about I get you a churro on the way home?” Chanyeol negotiated, hoping to stay out a little longer.

 

“...”

 

“Well?”

 

“Fine.”

 

“I’ll see you soon,” Chanyeol smiled at the phone screen before he hung up the call.

 

* * *

  


With sporadic bits of cinnamon and brown sugar all around Kyungsoo’s lips, he smiled as he was laid out on the couch and stared off into the ceiling until Chanyeol intruded with a question.

 

“Is there anyone you’ve met more powerful than you?” Chanyeol was on the couch, for he had Kyungsoo’s legs sprawled across his lap.

 

“Plenty, of course,” Kyungsoo glanced at the tall roommate’s black fluffy hair, reminding him of a little dog, “You’ll always be stronger than me, Chanyeol-ssi.”

 

“That’s sweet and all, but I meant in terms of superpower ability,” Chanyeol held back a blush at Kyungsoo’s honesty.

 

“Oh,” Kyungsoo seemed indifferent to the response, shrugging his shoulders, “I mean, there are plenty of overpowered abilities out there. I just happen to fall in the same bin as them.”

 

Placing his two fingers on top of elementalist’s leg, Chanyeol began to strut it up to the knee and back down to the ankle. It entertained him for a short while. “It’s just amazing at what you’re capable of, Soo.”

 

“Yeah, but don’t start that crap with me about heroes, villains, and everything in between,” Kyungsoo warned, rolling his eyes as he peeked at the TV playing a random news station. Mumbling under his breath, “Maybe in another universe, but absolutely not this one.”

 

Chanyeol began to mope: arms crossed, deep inside of a petty thought. Releasing a held breath, it was better to let the matter of his unanswered question go up into space. No use of being a child about the whole thing. He had to understand where Kyungsoo was coming from. Their separate lives were as different as heads are from tails. Despite being from the same coin, Chanyeol still could feel an uncrossable line between them. It was like being out on a swamp, believing he was safe by the edge of the murky waters while Kyungsoo was in the deep middle of it all. To venture or not? Chanyeol wanted to know more but couldn’t seem to move with his will.

 

“Planetary,” Kyungsoo’s stern voice echoed, “it’s not hard to Google anything that’s a planetary threat. Almost 79% of the data you’ll find will be accurate. The government has to have some secrets from the world, anyway.”

 

Chanyeol’s eyebrows knitted together, and his smooth lip began to pry open with a thirst to ask for more juicy information, “How do you know that?”

 

The air crackled outside shortly before it began to rain heavily. Kyungsoo knew better than to let his emotions get the best of him, but it was difficult to hold anything back when he wanted someone to understand him badly. Just this once, “Chanyeol-ssi. Most planetary threats, whether it’s a person or alien or mechanized weapon, they’re usually no longer part of this world or held under heavy containment.”

 

The tall roommate reached out to lock his pinky finger with the elementalist. He smiled into the action and said, “You’re still here, though. Not locked up or non-existent.”

 

Kyungsoo dully chuckled before a frown loomed over his face. “Sometimes you just have to fight your way out of a bad situation.”

 

Chanyeol tightened his grip around Kyungsoo’s pinky as he figured the other might need the physical comfort. It’s a wonder as to why Chanyeol seriously thought he knew so much about Kyungsoo. Instead, he only knew of what the depth of the shores was, but not the entire ocean. How arrogant and selfish he felt running on this lie all this time. As of today, Chanyeol was reminded of how distant he and Kyungsoo could be about the past. Choosing to not rekindle any old agony, the taller roommate removed elementalist’s legs from his lap to make a cup of tea in the kitchen. Of course, not without offering Kyungsoo if he wanted some tea in the process. The answer to that being a no, but it was still polite to ask.

 

Not all lines should be immediately crossed.

 

* * *

 

One line being dating. Chanyeol wanted to claim that it was his fault that he made no time for romance. He was busy. Sort of. Okay. Not really. He just really enjoyed spending time with Kyungsoo, and other activities made it impossible to fit in another person into that narrow space. Expanding that certain space wasn’t an option either. There was a reason why there were 24 hours on Earth.

 

So, in a struggled attempt to cut out some space for romance, Chanyeol made plans to go out for dinner with a female alien as part of trying a blind dating website. Of course, it was a shocker for Kyungsoo when he heard that Chanyeol was going on this date instead of staying at home to watch Lilo & Stitch marathon. The guilt already was eating up the taller roommate, but he supposed this opportunity seldom came.

 

There he was in his best attire: a classic suit and tie combo killer. The tie changed frequently in color of fuchsia and navy blue. It basically looked like a lava lamp was attached to Chanyeol’s neck. He would like to believe that this was his best way to physically attract potential lovers except for the moth-people kind. They almost ate all his clothes and nearly left him naked on the street on one of his rounds around the neighborhood at night. He hasn’t really forgiven them since…

 

Anyway, Chanyeol was spiffy. He believed. He thought so. Was it getting hot in here? His date hasn’t really shown up to the table yet. He kind of was getting nervous. He was surprised when a woman in a latex black dress sat across from him and smiled brightly at him with fanged teeth.

 

“Hi, I’m Ara,” she introduced herself politely, “it’s short for Arachne.”

 

Pause for a moment. Chanyeol smiled as best as he could without offending her, but his mind had to retake her words for a moment. He really hoped she was the species of spider that did not eat their male lovers. Resume back to the long date he was about to have, “Hi, I’m Chanyeol.”

 

* * *

 

Okay, maybe it wasn’t so bad. It was until she ended up being a black widow variant, and she straightforwardly told him that after she has committed sexual intercourse with him that she planned on killing him as it was the natural life cycle for her species. It honestly killed the mood of anything romantic sparking between them. Chanyeol tried to ask if she was sure her species was the one that killed their spouse since he knew there were a few species of black widows that do not kill male. To assure his disappointment, she told him that it runs in her family, and she definitely planned on continuing it.

 

End of story there.

 

He told Kyungsoo about his date as soon as he got home, and the roommate immediately laughed at his defeat. This was only the beginning. Therefore, Chanyeol had high hopes for the next date, so Kyungsoo can kiss his ass once he found someone to properly go out with.

  


No one told Chanyeol that finding someone compatible in this generation was going to backbreaking. This was humiliating, to say the least. In a span of two weeks, Chanyeol went on dates where they usually either want to eat him or exploit some part of his body. Every path he had with someone led to his untimely demise. As much as possible, he wanted to live as much as anyone else on this godforsaken planet.

 

Still, he wasn’t going to let some dumb chances ruin his optimism. He was going to have at least one good date happen to him.

 

He checked his hair and facial features in the hallway mirror close to the front door. Guiding his finger to align an out of place hair, Chanyeol uttered, “Alright, I look good. ‘Kay, I’ll se—”

 

“Yeah, go before you get annoying,” Kyungsoo side-eyed him from the couch, not paying too much attention to the joyous roommate.

 

Chanyeol couldn’t argue with that. He left in a hurry to meet at the rendezvous spot.

 

Kyungsoo gloomily looked at the door close shut, leaving a room that was too quiet for his tastes. Too adjusted to the noise that Chanyeol brings, Kyungsoo sulked a little in his position, swallowing the icky emotions that were overflowing to the top of his throat. It’s whatever. He believed that.

 

Chanyeol was rushing all over the place trying to get to the front of the local mall to meet with a person named Xiumin. By the time he met up with his date, he was actually shocked to meet someone relatively… plain.

 

Xiumin surely was the top of the competition so far since he showed no early signs of bringing Chanyeol an early demise. The two exchanged friendly introductions, went inside the mall and tried some popular items at the food court, left subtle touches on each other’s bodies while stuck in crowded places, and conversed a lot about their similarities.

 

A little mental note Chanyeol had to make about Xiumin was that Xiumin wasn’t even his name. It was Minseok. It came as a small surprise when Minseok informed Chanyeol that he worked at CBX with his friends. “You know Baekhyun and Jongdae!?” Chanyeol almost yelled while he was cramped in the elevator on the way up to the 24th floor.

 

As the doors opened, luckily that there was no one else in the elevator, Chanyeol was dragged out by Minseok to head to a few clothing stores to try what was in fashion this year. Still, there was a lot of mystery to the little hamster-like person that Minseok was.

 

“Let me guess,” Chanyeol observed as Minseok tried on a beanie that could moisturize and keep hair healthy with the right nutrients, “you can see the present?”

 

“Yeah,” Minseok responded straightforwardly, only caring that the beanie looked good on him as he was deeply peering. A few customers went by them, but their presence disappeared as soon as they entered. “I can see and tell everything that is happening at this very moment within a certain radius with me being in the center.”

 

“Isn’t it a little freaky how you and your friends coincidentally can tell the past, present, and future respectively?”

 

Minseok stopped for a moment to think, puffing out his cheeks as he pondered. “Nope. If anything, it’s nice that we all met and befriended each other. Or else we wouldn’t have this sweet business going on for us.”

 

“I suppose you’re right,” Chanyeol shrugged.

 

Minseok was a little startled by something, immediately looking up the ceiling. His displeasure present on his face, which was caught on by Chanyeol. When asked about it, Minseok could only respond with: “Space rats in the ventilation.”

 

“Ugh, those are the hardest to deal with,” Chanyeol added his own commentary to the conversation. Unaware that above the roof of the mall, an illegal landing of a spaceship appeared and latched itself into place.

 

It also helped that Minseok could see inside of the spaceship and could see the alignment of hostile weapons being hooked onto the backs and arms of the soldier aliens. Minseok grinned and faked a chuckle as he worried that these aliens would actually stir a little bit of trouble at the mall, and his suspicions only got confirmed when one of the green reptilian goblin freaks pointed and shot with a portal gun to bring out a giant serpent-like creature that was at least 50-feet high. It breathed out a fire that later froze the air in front of it. This was going to be an ugly fight, and Minseok supposed he and Chanyeol were going to be caught in the crossfire if they didn’t choose to evacuate the area soon.

 

Just as Minseok was about to inform Chanyeol about the impending danger, something at an extremely abnormal speed entered the radius of Minseok’s perception. There was someone crazy enough to try to interrupt the aliens’ purpose?

 

It was a person that Minseok vaguely remembered Baekhyun and Jongdae brought up before. Could it be that one person named Kyungsoo? The elementalist guy, right?

 

“You guys don’t happen to be trying to start a terrorist attack, are ya?” The man asked the aliens.

 

Minseok rubbed his temples as he really hoped this guy knew what he was doing, instigating and whatnot.

 

Without a second to waste, one alien shot a low-tier plasma pistol at the… vigilante? Could he be considered as one? Minseok really couldn’t determine what was a good possible name for the man. It was too bad he couldn’t share his vision with Chanyeol because this was going to be a good show to watch.

 

The blast flew out the barrel and was in the line of sight towards the metahuman. “I really hoped you know that this is an important day for Chanyeol-ssi, and I want him to have a decent date without some fucking asshole aliens disturbing it all!” The man shouted before disappearing from their line of sight.

 

Wait, this guy knew Chanyeol? So this guy was Kyungsoo. Minseok nodded away as the pieces fell naturally into place. This was a force to be reckoned with.

 

Kyungsoo teleported behind one enemy and surprised the scales of the alien with a giant hammer made of ice and launched the poor invader back out to the stratosphere. Once again, Kyungsoo teleported out of the area to reappear in front of another enemy to engage himself in a hand-to-hand combat while he empowered his fists with high amounts of electricity. With one low jab to the gut, he released all of the stored energy in his other fist to uppercut the alien with an explosion of static. The other aliens began to scurry, hoping to get Kyungsoo off their tail if they separated.

 

“You think it’ll be that easy to escape me?” Kyungsoo locked the rooftop off with a camouflaged barrier of light. He wasn’t going to let these scum come into a city, thinking it would be easy to conquer without facing any consequences.

 

The serpent swirled in the air and exhaled a powerful burst of flames at Kyungsoo, but he only brushed it off before he literally drained the air and water out of its body. It almost looked like dried pollack if Kyungsoo thought hard enough about it. Shaking off the thought, he had bigger business to attend to. He stared at the other aliens that were confused on how to escape the barrier of light Kyungsoo placed down. It was times like this that he wondered why do these aliens think Earth was a simple place to invade.

 

Not feeling too much remorse, he slowly remembered these species of aliens as they were born like any other reptile, but they were born with exceptional fighting capabilities and a strong bloodlust. They usually come in invader ships, so these were obviously the scouts. He remembered how these little guys would try to dominate Earth every so often, thinking their forces would be advanced enough to overrun certain areas. Too bad. This place wasn't one of them.

 

“Go and tell your fleet to leave while I’m calm,” Kyungsoo threatened as he pulled the oxygen out of all the bodies of the terrorist aliens. The message surely was comprehended as they nodded their heads away at the grace and mercy they received. Releasing his powers, Kyungsoo watched as they ran with their tails between their legs and was teleported back to their ship.

 

Still, a little bit of emptiest was lingering inside of him as he turned to his side.

 

Minseok was beyond impressed, maybe terrified along the way, about Kyungsoo’s fighting capabilities. Still, he should keep quiet about that happening just now and let Chanyeol live in ignorance for a bit. Perhaps Minseok was going to open a can of worms if he ventured too deep into this date with Chanyeol. Truly a shame since Chanyeol is a great guy, but the timing was not aligned for him to date Minseok.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it was okay for everyone! I just want y'all to know that you all are capable and deserving of love. I hope you all have an amazing day, and if that doesn't happen, that's okay. Your day will come. Just be patient and be humble, my friends. Feel free to leave kudos or comments or whatever you guys want. Have a wonderful time, my wonderful readers!


	6. Chapter 5: Our Stars Don't Align Together, But We'll Still Shine On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My own personal vent: Sorry for the really bad delays! I've been having a weird time of trying to push this story to have a firm substance in being a story with plot and direction rather than being super spontaneous about stuff. Like, I want to plan out how certain events go and how they will tie in the story later and further the development of the world and the characters involved. It's just a lot on the amount of time I'm given to write on my free time that's not already being shared and split with my other activities like spending time with my boyfriend, going out (having a social life is hard but rewarding for me) with people I love, sleeping, having personal time to just zone out, and etc. etc. But yeah! I'm sorry! Oh, and work has been great lately too. Being train to do more things for the company makes me feel important and part of the real team, but it's equally pressuring since I have to do well, but I hope y'all wish me luck on improving myself at work. I believe in myself too. I believe in all of you guys in doing something great, whether it's now or later. 
> 
> Anyways. here's the update, short but still here!

It was a rare sunny day where Chanyeol and Kyungsoo spent some quality time under the shade of a fairly large foreign tree that recently bloomed with purple leaves and starlit flowers. It was called a Leech-Star Tree. Chanyeol found out that the reasoning for its given name was because the life cycle of the tree started with a seed grown from another planet that would travel around the void of space until it gets picked up by a planet’s gravitational pull. It has one of the best survivability to last in space for centuries before it can begin the next stage of its cycle. Amazingly, it can also grow in literally any environment it happens to land in as long as it has access to its primary source of living: light from a star. Exclusively, any light produced by a star, being the sun or the stars in the Big Dipper, it will absorb those little particles of light and begin to live off of that. Chanyeol was oddly proud that he had that knowledge in his head ready to explain to anyone curious about the mysterious plant.

 

“Want to see a cool thing?” Chanyeol asked Kyungsoo, who nodded in response. Once a starlit flower was picked, the flower will wilt into a dust of light within a slow minute.

 

Kyungsoo scoffed at the image as he supposed it was slightly cool. However, he had a better idea. He picked three flowers from a nearby branch and before the flowers wilted entirely, he bent and manipulated the light to fabricate a life-like figure of  Spider-man, which made Chanyeol extremely excited to see. Then being a little bit of an asshole, Kyungsoo did a horrendous voiceover for Spider-man and said, “I don’t feel so good.”

 

“You wouldn’t dare, Soo,” Chanyeol gasped as his eyes were shocked at the sudden change in atmosphere. Newfound understanding of betrayal coursing through Chanyeol’s bloodstreams, he expected Kyungsoo to be the last to use such a dirty form of a joke.

 

Sighing, “You know that I don’t mean it. I’m sorry. It was bad taste of me to do that.”

 

Coincidentally, one of the elementalist’s biggest flaw was that he was weak to Chanyeol being sad. Kyungsoo wasn’t the type of person that walked up to others and just cheered them up. In fact, it was usually the vice versa that occurred instead. Although Kyungsoo wasn’t really sad… rather disappointed. Flashbacks ran through his mind like a fire that cannot be extinguished, the scene of a younger version of himself crying by himself; a little boy that was forced to grow up too soon. 

 

The grass around Chanyeol started to brown at an unusually quick pace, and he saw Kyungsoo emptily staring into space, bewitched by time. “Hey, Soo, you okay?” Chanyeol’s initial thought was to do a small check-up on his best friend.

 

“H-huh?” Kyungsoo’s consciousness returned, but a fear was present in his eyes as he peeked into Chanyeol’s soft eyes. He took a quick glance at his surroundings and noticed the grass that died, so he began to mitigate the problems he caused—restoring the green hue in the blades of grass.

 

It’s these moments that Kyungsoo learned that he dreaded more than anything else. It’s the face of someone he deeply cares about with such a hurt and worried expression overtly laid across the face. No more of those looks aimed at him. Better. He had to be better… “I-I don’t know what to say. I just lost myself for a moment there,” Kyungsoo stuttered, avoiding eye contact as the shame took the front to cover for him.

 

“No, no, no,” Chanyeol interjected, placing his hand on top of Kyungsoo’s hand, “it’s not your fault. You’re okay, Soo. You’re okay.”

 

“Chanyeol?” Kyungsoo whispered; a breath so gentle that it made all the tiny strands of hair on the taller man’s body stand as it would come by. In such a dejected tone, Kyungsoo swallowed his salty pride to place his hand on a door that he thought he wouldn’t want to open again.

 

Soft innocence trickling out of Chanyeol’s mouth, “Yes?” 

 

Take this chance. Confess. Free what was hiding underneath the blanket he's safely tucking away. Kyungsoo had to liberate the truth that was jailed all this time. “Can I share something with you?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Just this once… Kyungsoo wanted to his story to be told to another by his own words. “But it’s really personal this time.”

 

Snows of ashes sparked down memory lane. Kyungsoo wanted this to stay inside of him, but there was something about Chanyeol that his heart wanted to say that everything will be okay. A trust that has been building all this time. Charcoal, strong winds, tears… it was all going to come back.

 

Chanyeol nodded, comprehending how imperative this was to Kyungsoo. “Okay.”

 

“Let’s go back to CBX.”

 

* * *

 

 

A room where time and space can furiously and unapologetically make out. An object can choose to appear in one space and then occupy another space in a split moment. Go into this room for a literal minute and leave it a month older. A paradox living in reality, but the ironic part of reality was that there was always a paradox hiding somewhere in this big world that Chanyeol and Kyungsoo lived in.

 

All of this maintained in a single room used for business for CBX. A fitting place for the three clairvoyant metahumans to run their readings for curious customers.

 

Going up the same stairs, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo watched how particles of their reality disintegrated before it reconstructed into something familiar. Actually, sort of familiar. 

 

Upon entering this room, Chanyeol looked across from him to notice Jongdae at his desk eating an apple. As the rest of the room fabricated itself, it looked like it was in the middle of a rainforest. Jongdae’s desk and the vinyl player was still present, but most of the ambiance of the room was entirely different from last time. The water dripping down the vividly green leaves was as real as it could get to Chanyeol. This was no trick to the eyes, but it was to the mind. 

 

“Just don’t question it,” Jongdae puts his apple down, which immediately began to rot and dispelled itself from reality, “what’s up?”

 

Kyungsoo spoke out first, waving his hands back and forth, swishing the drops of water on all the leaves, “I want you to take Chanyeol into my past.”

 

“Easier said than done,” Jongdae remarked, going over to increase the volume of the opera song that was playing earlier to Chanyeol and Kyungsoo’s unexpected arrival. A monkey’s howl could be heard across the lush world. An ant drowned inside of a droplet, never to return to its colony if it chose to come home sooner rather than explore all on its own.

 

Chanyeol retorted, unbothered by how his clothes were beginning to get wet, “And why is that?”

 

“Because I can take you to basic memories if your bond with Kyungsoo is, well, superficial. If it’s deep, then I can freely bring us deeper into Kyungsoo’s mind.” Jongdae explained, taking a seat on his fancy chair, nonchalant about the pesky customers he seemed to have acquired. “Plus, you might not like what you see in there.”

 

“It’s fine,” Kyungsoo reassured the other metahuman, “it’s fine.”

 

Darkness took hold of the world around them. Green hell became black, and it was like yellow eyes stared at them in every direction from the top of the trees and in the shrubs. Moonlight specifically shined over in one area, and it was over Jongdae’s desk, which brought forth an uncomfortable vibe to Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. And it served them right… because the past was not a pretty thing half the time. It’s filled with mistakes, regrets, wander, and so much more. It certainly wasn’t for the weak-minded or ignorant to step into.

 

“Okay,” Jongdae shrugged,turning his back at them before leaving a small sneer at their direction, still showing that he was not too bothered by the sudden intrusion or demands that were given, “Chanyeol-ssi, come here on my left and Kyungsoo come to my right.”

 

Doing as they were instructed, Chanyeol tenderly and worriedly looked at Kyungsoo since this was a big jump in their friendship. “You ready?”

 

“No, but here goes nothing,” Kyungsoo nervously chuckled.

 

“And,” getting in close contact to Kyungsoo’s ear, “did you see Jongdae’s eyes turn red for a split moment?”

 

“Chanyeol?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Please shut up.”

 

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have fun out there. Do what y'all want to do or work up to do something you want to do. Or wander until you find something you want to do! Not everything is easily laid out for us. I understand. Just go live your life as you want it. I hope you all have or try to have a beautiful day!


	7. Chapter 6: "Don't Follow Me, You'll End Up in My Arms"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update Update Update! It's here yall! Like finally. Holy shit. I mean, enjoy the chapter and thank you all for being patient! 
> 
> On a side note on my life if any of readers want to know: Life has been decent? I guess. Like, it's definitively not been shitty nor has it been filled with adventure. I'm sort of neutral/okay(?) with where I am at this point. Lowkey lonely. Yearning to get to do something fun nowadays. But also need to make money and pay things. Idk. I'm just venting. Joji's song "Slow Dancing in the Dark" directly influenced the title of this chapter. I believe it makes sense to me. +the song makes me simp a lot.

Within a blink of an eye, Chanyeol was surrounded by buildings and streets, breathing and feeling the surreal environment as if this all wasn’t old history. Cars parked on the streets as summer wind blows by his face. Yeah, this was too weird, and it didn’t help that Kyungsoo was no longer in the picture, but Jongdae was by his side instead. It was a fair trade, sort of? Maybe. The taller man made eye contact and wanted to check if they successfully went into the past, but the smirk and nod from Jongdae could be trusted that they landed right where they should be.

 

“Don’t worry,” Jongdae said, casually getting comfortable with the scenery, “this is just a random memory for starters. But I do say, this is a deep memory already.”

 

“It is?” Chanyeol chuckled a little, unsure of how to react.

 

“Trust me, it  _ is _ .”

 

A question bubbled in Chanyeol’s head—where exactly in Kyungsoo’s past were they? Taking a quick glimpse; looking right, looking left, and checking behind him, he could infer that they were in a normal neighborhood street. Trees shaking to wind, shade resting on the cement as sporadic as can be, smelling the clean but humid air.

 

On the other end of the street, Chanyeol spotted a little kid walking down their way. He could sense that the kid was awfully familiar. The eyes and face were a little different, but the aura was still the same as Kyungsoo. 

 

"There goes our little Elementalist,” Jongdae announced shamelessly. Before Chanyeol could try to suffocate child Kyungsoo for being so cute and tiny, Jongdae shoved his arms in the way to prevent Chanyeol from running towards the poor fellow.

 

“You can try to touch anything you want here since it’s very life-like, but the past is still the past,” Jongdae lectured, hurting Chanyeol’s feelings a little, “meaning you’ll just phase right through them. You can only observe here.”

 

“Ah, yes, you’re right,” Chanyeol looked a little down, but he supposes it was for the best. This was not his past after all. 

 

Kid-Kyungsoo finished school an hour ago, so he was on his way home to enjoy the popsicle he saved in the freezer. He planned to watch cartoons first and take a small nap after, then he would wake up and do his homework once he gets energized by the food that eomma makes. It was going to be another day for him. Nothing more of it, and nothing less of it. This simplicity was the life he was truly content with.

 

Well, actually, the weather was a little too hot for him, so he easily changed the temperature of the atmosphere of his neighborhood to be cooler by 10 degrees. It’s not like anyone will be angry at him for trying to make things bearable around here. 

 

Chanyeol noticed it, too. How the wind allowed Kyungsoo to bend it to his will. Even at the young budding age, Chanyeol could see how much potential the little Elementalist had,  _ have _ . 

 

“It’s a good day today, so let’s have an early spring!” Kyungsoo ran through the empty street, giving flowers to every passing bush and branch. The only area was covered in a beautiful, colorful arrangement of bright colors before he blew them all away to the sky like they were dandelions instead of petals. God, they were magnificent to watch drift away… 

 

“This was when he shortly discovered about his ability to manipulate the trees and wind,” Jongdae’s voice reminded Chanyeol that he was still there and that this was still a scratch at the surface at what they were about to uncover.

 

“So,” Chanyeol glanced at the other man, “this is Kyungsoo’s origin story?”

 

“I guess you can put it that way.”

 

Chanyeol and Jongdae were standing still with time rapidly moving on its own as random movements occurred around him. It made him embarrassingly dizzy, and he could tell Jongdae was laughing a little in the background. Hey, this was still very new to Chanyeol! He didn’t usually time-travel. Like ever. 

 

It stopped at Kyungsoo’s room as he was scrolling through porn for the first time. A frame that Chanyeol really didn’t need nor want to see of his prepubescent best friend. “Oh, no! I feel like I should cover my eyes! Jongdae, can’t you change it?” Chanyeol winced at the website on the dim computer screen that had big breasts and vaginas that were spread as an eagle’s wings. It was… horribly erotic.

 

It was hot. Really. The lukewarm sensation building inside until it boiled and steamed, then it manifested itself through the Kyungsoo’s skin; literal fire began to exert itself from his hands, which burned the leather chair he sat on. Bad enough that he had to learn how to control the fire to  _ not  _ burn the entire house down, but the fire alarm in his room started to go off as well. In the spur of the moment, Kyungsoo unknowingly managed to siphon the energy from batteries to anxiously quiet the shitty noise box from waking up his family at three-fucking-am. 

 

Picking a random god that would answer him first, Kyungsoo deeply prayed that the noise didn’t penetrate too deeply through the walls, but these walls were thin as a single coating of paint, and his parents soon rushed into the room to see Kyungsoo in his boxer briefs with a semi-erection as a smoky fire was present in the room. The combination only made Kyungsoo realize how much he wanted to disappear. 

 

Black smoke slowly fogged his room, the porno he picked was still playing itself, and his parents shocked expression did not help with Kyungsoo’s embarrassment. Even if it wasn’t his intentional wish, his body and powers reacted naturally to his command. The fire erupted and spread across the house in a speed that his parents have never seen any pyrokinetic do. 

 

Flames burned but didn’t char anything. Every little spark, ember, and wisp knew that this house was too important to Kyungsoo. Still, the place was lit in flames and that would heavily freak the shit out of the neighbors.

 

“Kyungsoo,” the Elementalist’s newfound power was neat, but his mom had a look that said grounded for eternity. 

 

Calming down was the challenging part, but Eomma completely handled that well by easing him into believing that they weren’t mad and was happy that he was growing stronger. It was just that they prefer to have a house by the end of the night. Thankfully, the clean-up wasn’t difficult since all the fire slithered back to Kyungsoo like some sort of pet. Some parts of Kyungsoo’s room was tattered in ashes and burn marks, but it was a nice touch to the ordinary ambiance it usually gave off. 

 

Next to the bedpost, Chanyeol could see that Kyungsoo had a little bit of an adventurous ride with his discovery of powers, but he failed to see how deep the well actually was. The past drifted into space the moment Kyungsoo’s mom started the ‘sex-talk’ and, hell, Chanyeol was glad it moved on. 

 

God, the sex-talk was always a cringy matter he has ever had to deal with his parents.

 

Once time settled, it seemed like it was back to the same street where Chanyeol and Jongdae first saw the kid version of the Elementalist. Fewer cars parked, street lamps turned on, and a few people that roamed the sidewalks.

 

Jongdae closed his eyes and focused his powers on maintaining their current position. “This one seemed like it almost didn’t want to let us see what happened here,” reopening his eyes, glancing seriously at Chanyeol.

 

An explosion nearby echoed the streets, startling Chanyeol. A shadow flies over him before it landed a few feet behind. Turning his head, Chanyeol noted that the tattered person was Kyungsoo! And… were there tears in his eyes?

 

“I-I don’t want t-to fight!” Kyungsoo cried out, clutching his heavily bruised arm as he laid on the cool concrete to relax the throbbing pain on the side of his head. 

 

Chanyeol looked in the direction where Kyungsoo was launched from, and he could see another person approaching fast. One blink later, the tall roommate could feel something melancholic in the area. The air rotted and the leaves on the tree began to fall off and wither away. 

 

A tremendous voice shouted at Kyungsoo, “And why the hell not!”

 

“Because we’re friends… because Min,” Kyungsoo retorted, massaging his wounds, trying so fucking hard to forget how he got to this point, “you  _ understand  _ me.”

 

“But you don’t understand  _ me _ ,” the other person finally animated themselves in front of Kyungsoo. A cheap ability to let the user blend perfectly into the wind and become part of it. Still, there was a sadness behind those words impacted Chanyeol as well. Hovering a little over Kyungsoo, a teenager with similar hair as black as the bottom of the ocean and bangs sloppily covering his eyebrow; a slender neck combined with a skinny body made him look innocent, but the deep fire in his eyes were still present. 

 

Inadequate: it was what Kyungsoo was feeling inside of himself. Helpless to comprehend what his best friend was feeling, he struggled to stand on his two feet before trying to soothe the tension between them, “You’re an amazing aerokinetic. You can literally change the atmosphere to your will! What more can you possibly want?”

 

“I—”

 

“Hold your hands up, punk!” An ogre cop suddenly intervened, hoisting his tranquilizer gun up to fire at Kyungsoo’s friend at a moment’s notice. “You guys know the strict rules of using your powers rampantly around a residential neighborhood!” 

 

“Officer, look, he and I—argk!” Min gasped aloud, staring at a sharp arrowhead that pierced directly through his chest from the back. No blood was present, but his beating heart was palpitating like never before, and a resurgence of pain erupted through his whole body. All his nerves shut down and his organs began to pulse profusely. Naturally, he came to a stop while his eyes went entirely black.

 

Kyungsoo turned around to see where the arrow came from, and he saw no one within the perimeter. No matter, his best friend was hurt! He needed to check on… him? “Hey, are you okay?” Kyungsoo muttered as he noticed the arrow already disappeared but left his friend in a twitchy state. 

 

“Oh, never been better,” the aerokinetic calmly spoke, regaining the color of his eyes and his posture along the way. His smile was creepily wide, and it was not producing anything close to welcoming. 

 

The air was sharp and being concentrated somewhere. Kyungsoo could feel his friend’s power being focused somewhere. “You just got shot by an arrow. I don’t think you’re okay.”

 

“Oh, Soo, don’t you be such a baby,” the wind-manipulator spoke in a lustful manner, but there was a malice hiding underneath the honey-laid words. Min called out, “Officer, oh, officer!”

 

“Hm?” The ogre was perplexed by the sudden turn of events.

 

“Do you believe in heaven and hell? Does the thought of it leave you  _ breathless _ ?” A trigger happened and all the oxygen from the officer’s lungs flew out like a soul escaping its physical body behind. The body of the cop fell unconsciously to the floor; lifeless as a doll, sweet air that the Min controlled at the palm at his hand. No longer held by his moral or social accordance to the law, the aerokinetic was free to unleash the fullest strength of his powers without restraint.

 

Seeing this, Kyungsoo acted quickly and forced the nearby trees to give oxygen to the ogre and then gave him a precise amount of electricity to shock the cop back to life. “Run! I’ll handle this!” Kyungsoo bravely shouted at the ogre, hoping that this wouldn’t turn out too ugly. 

 

“Ooo, a challenge?” Min looked at Kyungsoo with sly interest.

 

“What the fuck was that about!? You wouldn’t attack the cops like that! What’s wrong with you?” Kyungsoo grabbed the hem of his best friend’s shirt, rambling angrily, shaking furiously while his arm was aching.

 

“Soo?” The soft tone caught the Elementalist’s attention quickly, but it was only a rude trick to send him flying out into the sky with a small updraft. “Don’t get in my way again. That’s your only warning.” He swats his hand and the air mimicked his movements, indirectly slapping Kyungsoo harshly across the perimeter. 

 

Chanyeol was in awe that someone was able to make Kyungsoo look virtually powerless.

 

“You know this memory will black out soon. We’re about to transition to another one soon,” said Jongdae, unmoved by the power exhibited by the mysterious aerokinetic.

 

“I see,” Chanyeol looked into the sky as a white flashed swallowed everything before bringing them further into another section of Kyungsoo’s past. 

 

The two were placed in front of a demolished home. Windows smashed, glass everywhere in the front yard, part of the roof was missing. It was a shit hole at best. As Chanyeol was about to move, Kyungsoo ran through his body as if he was a ghost and went around the building to go into the backyard. Chanyeol had a good guess he and Jongdae should head in that direction. In the short walk, Chanyeol analyzed the amount of debris was in their way before he saw an opening to the backyard and saw Kyungsoo and the other aerokinetic and… a bunch of random people?

 

“Why? Why would you do this to your own family?” Kyungsoo gasped hard at the horrendous sight of his best friend’s family laid cold on the ground. 

 

“They didn’t understand how it was to be so powerful yet so powerless,” Min vented as he was afloat in the air. “A family of wind-manipulators and the most powerful of them all was me. They didn’t like the overwhelming potential I exhibited, so they had to control me.”

 

“Min,” uttered Kyungsoo, as he carefully placed his hands over the eyelids of the mother and shut them. “This isn’t right.”

 

“Holding my powers back wasn’t right,” Min retorted, “it’s too bad for them,” a distasteful finger point at his family, “that my powers grow stronger the more they held me back. A storm cannot be contained, y’know?”

 

“When you have the power to manipulate wind, you sure as hell can!” Kyungsoo angrily sassed, unforgiving of what went down not too long ago. “How do you even feel about yourself knowing that you took your family’s last breath out of pettiness!?’

 

“Great, actually, but you should mind your tongue,” Min threatened, changing the atmospheric pressure slightly. 

 

“Or what!?” Kyungsoo yelled, returning the change in the air by to its default pressure. “You’ll murder me just like them?” The bodies on the cold earthy grounds with the grass hugging them for warmth.

 

For a moment, Min hesitated and wavered in his heart. It was like a black sludge was covering all of his memories, making the past look like muk. “I told you to watch your fucking mouth!” 

 

The clouds in the sky drawn into their specific location, and the earth moved slightly with the wind directing it towards Min’s direction. Kyungsoo laughed—not in that funny way, but the pitiful one, wondering how he got himself into such a fucked up predicament. His neighborhood best friend suddenly went rogue and killed his own family, so Kyungsoo was left… to do what exactly? Kill his own best friend? It was too extreme and totally not his only option.

 

Min snapped the wind with a snap of his fingers, forcing it to whip and slash at Kyungsoo, who instinctively dodged them with his quick reflexes. It only frustrated Min to see his enemy still alive and breathing, so he attempted to suck out the oxygen from Kyungsoo in the same manner he did to the orge officer from before. Although, it didn’t go quite as planned since the other metahuman was able to fight off Min on control. It was like every time he tried to pull air from Kyungsoo’s lungs, the other man pulled with equal and maybe even greater force to compensate. Furthermore, the plan was a bust. Time to change it up!

 

Kyungsoo always had talked to Min about the two of them becoming superheroes one day, but the reality of the concept left a hole in Kyungsoo’s ignorance. There are no more heroes in this world of crime, hate, discrimination, and chaos. Still, Kyungsoo was not going to let a power-crazy aerokinetic turn this world to fucking dust. Even if that same aerokinetic happened to be his best friend! This world still has so much potential for life, and he didn’t want to let one person decide the fate of it that easily.

 

Min threw ripples and whirlwinds of concentrated air, manipulating them to reach a maximum speed of 220 mph. He smiled knowing this should be enough to slice a person’s delicate skin and hair off, but he wasn’t expecting Kyungsoo to counter it with an air wall of equal strength and density to withstand the blows. This was ridiculous but almost incredible. “Impossible,” Min mouthed, awed at Kyungsoo’s determination.

 

“Best give up before I make this get ugly.”

 

“Not quite done yet,” Min laughed, transforming the winds to form a jagged disc, which was twice the size of an average human, before throwing it in the direction towards Kyungsoo’s house.

 

“No!” Kyungsoo pulled his attention from the fight to rip the earth apart from the street to place a wall to block the trajectory. While distracted, Min appeared before him and tapped Kyungsoo on the gut. “Shit.”

 

An explosion of gust hurled Kyungsoo through Min’s house, breaking down the walls, windows before he was solidly slammed against a stone wall. The only reason the impact didn’t utterly destroy anything essential to Kyungsoo’s body is that he used an air wall at the last second to cushion the impact. Meanwhile, as he tried to catch his breath, the Elementalist's throat was tightly clenched by an invisible force.

 

“I see,” Min hovered through the hole of his house, “you’re soft. You’re saddened. You’re hesitant. You’re weak.” Increasing the strength he has on the other’s neck.

 

“I—” Kyungsoo starting to gasp for oxygen, “am not, weak!”  

 

A crack underneath Min appeared and spread apart wide for a house to fall into. He noticed the deep shade of black that bottom had before arms and hands of dirt and soil came forth from that pitch darkness and attempted to pull him into its abyss. As one hand got close enough, it’s palm opened up like a mouth and spat a bucket-load of flower petals at Min’s face, minorly surprising him. Through a narrow line through the openings of the petals, he could see Kyungsoo’s remorseful face as a bright orange wisp in his hand jumped forward at the petals and lit ablaze a fire so fast and large that Min could only shroud himself in a tight ball as he layered a protective barrier of air around himself to avoid serious damage. Then, it came. A purple lightning that snapped the sky and unwillingly forced Min down the abyss that Kyungsoo set up. In his final moments of light, he saw above a glimpse of Kyungsoo’s melancholic expression on the brink of tears.

 

The earth closed again. Kyungsoo knew he couldn’t kill his best friend, so he intentionally hid him away until the government can do something about the rampaging metahuman.

 

“That was pretty fucking cool,” Chanyeol admitted to Jongdae, watching the memory flash to white.

 

“Apparently, the best friend gets locked up, but there’s still more to the memory than that alone,” Jongdae seemed troubled as he began to take them a little further in time. 

 

Min was taken alive by the government, to be monitored for the rest of his days until deemed safe to be released into the public. Evidently, Kyungsoo was reluctant to give his own best friend away like that, but it was the best course of action. It was only until he could find a way to reverse whatever the hell was shot into him. That arrow from before, it wasn’t normal. It was the reason his best friend went off the track. 

 

It was a fair exchange of information when Kyungsoo gave his friend away. A pair of men in black immediately told him about an agent that went rogue on the CIA. A metahuman with the ability to change a person’s will to its extreme counterpart. Ultimately, this particular person was able to make wrongdoers becomes good, but also vice versa. So to speak, they were a good person until an incident occurred on a mission that made them get shot by their own power. And they disappeared from radar and made good agents, civilians, and even a few villains deviate from their usual motives. 

 

An untold price came with telling the government about Kyungsoo’s incident was that they laid their eyes on the potential threat of the Elementalist's powers. They, too, tried to lock up Kyungsoo and that didn’t go too nicely. 

 

Jongdae learned this fairly quickly but couldn’t tell Chanyeol just yet. He forced them out of Kyungsoo’s memories as this can take a lot out of the people and user. Back to reality, he physically returned to his body.

 

Chanyeol soon came back after Jongdae. Last to wake up from the trance was Kyungsoo. 

 

The newly acquired information was locked inside of Chanyeol’s head, personally engraving it in his head since it was an important memory to Kyungsoo, which automatically made it matter to him, too. 

 

“You two can come back tomorrow or another convenient time. Go home,” Jongdae instructed, manifesting those thready rainbow cigarettes he saw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading all of THAT mess. I promise I am trying to write as much as I can while trying to motivate myself to keep updating this. I want to finish this; I want to write this; I want people to read this; I want to have a general direction that points the readers on how this story will go (with the exception of fillers). Overall, I want to meet my own expectations and others. Leave whatever you guys want-- questions, kudos, comments, etc. I am always up for a convo on whatever. Just be mindful of responses. 
> 
> I hope everyone is having a wonderful time. Be fantastic today.

**Author's Note:**

> Any comments y'all wanna make? Or future suggestions for chapters? I'm pretty open on how this story will go since there's no 'real' plot in it as a whole. I'm just gonna milk the living crap out of this au because I really am fascinated in superpowers and supernatural things but too lazy to make a bunch of different mini stories. Anyways, thanks for reading and hope you enjoy the rest of your day!
> 
> I update as much I feel motivated to do so, or when I have the time since I have work nowadays. Please be patient for updates!!


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